paradox
A paradox is a statement that appears to contradict itself and may yet be true, or a situation whose features seem incompatible.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- A statement that seems to contradict itself but may nevertheless be true.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - A situation that combines features which appear mutually inconsistent.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Examples
- The liar paradox: “this sentence is false”.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - It is a paradox that the busiest people often find the most time.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Usage
Paradox works in three settings. In logic and philosophy it is a technical term for a statement that generates a contradiction. In journalism it names a surprising regularity of social or economic life, as in the paradox of choice. In conversation it is used more loosely, to flag that something runs against expectation, and there it often means no more than an odd irony.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The noun is countable and usually followed by of, as in the paradox of choice or the liar paradox. It also appears in the pattern it is a paradox that, which introduces the surprising fact in a full clause. Common verbs are resolve, explain and expose, and the adjective seeming marks a contradiction that is only apparent.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Paradox and contradiction are not interchangeable. A contradiction is a fault, two claims that cannot both hold, while a paradox may be sound and may even be the point of an argument. The common error is to call any unlucky coincidence a paradox, which drops the requirement that the thing seem impossible and yet stand.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular forms according to English morphology (editorial description).
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | paradox |
| plural | paradoxes |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- the liar paradox
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - a seeming paradox
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - the paradox of choice
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourceRelated words
- paradoxical , adjective
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does paradox mean?
A paradox is a claim that seems to cancel itself and yet survives scrutiny, or a state of affairs whose parts look incompatible until the terms are examined. The liar sentence, which declares itself false and so can be neither true nor false, is the textbook case of the first kind.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the difference between a paradox and a contradiction?
A contradiction is a genuine conflict between two claims, and it usually means that something is wrong, whereas a paradox only looks contradictory at first and may turn out to be correct. The whole interest of a paradox lies in that gap between appearance and truth, which a plain contradiction does not have.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the paradox of choice?
The paradox of choice is the idea that offering more options can leave people less satisfied, because a wider range raises the cost of comparing and increases the chance of regret. The phrase names a pattern discussed in writing about consumer behaviour, and it is often quoted without the qualifications of the original argument.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word paradox come from?
Greek paradoxos meant contrary to expectation and was formed from para, beside or against, with doxa, opinion. Skeat renders the Greek as contrary to opinion, strange, and traces the English word to Ben Jonson and to Minsheu’s dictionary of 1627, with Latin paradoxum in between.